The importance of video content for your social media channels continues to grow. With more than 1 billion hours of video consumed on YouTube and 4 billion views on Facebook EVERY DAY, you can quickly see why your marketing strategy for the rest of this year and in 2021 must include video.
There are several things to consider when posting to social media and your websites.
Post Video Organically to Social Media
Video posts across social media reach more people. Facebook prioritizes videos in its algorithm. That means that once a user has interacted with a video, they’re going to see more videos.
“We’ll continue to improve video ranking to show videos that people value and to help great video makers reach more people on Facebook,” the social media giant says on its website.
When you upload a video to Facebook, you can easily add a title, keywords and a custom thumbnail that will improve your chances of your fans watching the video.
Keep in mind that Facebook and YouTube aren’t the only platforms where people are consuming video:
- There are 2 billion video views every day on Twitter
- 75% of LinkedIn marketers who use video say its effective
- Videos on Instagram get about 50% more engagement than photo posts
Speaking of Instagram, any video that is longer than 60 seconds can be added to IGTV. This is a great way to organize your video content into multiple series and target a younger, growing demographic.
Upload Your Videos To YouTube
YouTube is considered to be the No. 2 search engine in the world behind Google (who actually owns YouTube). Adding your video to YouTube will make it even easier for people to find more information about your business.
By adding videos to this platform, it is easy for users to share across multiple social media platforms. In your video descriptions, you can also add links to your website for people to find more information.
You can also embed your videos on your website (much more below on that!) as well as using the links to post in emails.
> RELATED: Why It’s Time to Stop Ignoring YouTube
Embed Video Content On Your Website
If your website has a blog, you want to supplement your written content with video content.
For example, if you are writing a blog post with three tips about your profession, expand those thoughts and create a video. Users will stay on your website to consume this video and then likely stay on your site.
> RELATED: The Importance of Creating Social Media Video
What Size Should My Video Be?
Landscape? Vertical? Square? Our natural way to pick up a smart phone is to hold it vertically, but when it comes to recording video, hold it horizontally!
When you record your video horizontally, make sure your main action area is happening in the middle. You want to do this so you can then crop your video for different platforms. For example, it’s easier to crop a horizontal video into a square rather than a vertical video.
What Video Tools Should I Use?
At The Social Ginger, we LOVE using Wave.video. Wave will allow you to easily edit your videos, add stock images, text overlays, and a call to action. You can also crop your videos into different sizes with just a few clicks of a mouse.
Canva, which has gained tremendous popularity in 2020 for creating graphics, also allows for some video editing. While it’s not as robust as Wave in creating video, you can add graphics or a text overlay in Canva as well.
Lastly, but certainly not least important, add captions to your videos. You can upload your video to a site such as Rev.com, which will create captions for you for a small fee. Wave also has an auto-caption creator that is easy to edit if “ummms” and “uhhhs” make their way into the transcript.
Captions are key because research shows that many people on social media start their videos with the sound OFF.
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Want help making video part of your social media marketing strategy to close out 2020 or to start 2021? Contact us at The Social Ginger to see how we can partner with you.
